


The Botanic Garden

by duckmoles



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, Gen, Identity Porn, Kinda, Pre-Slash, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 21:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14941976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckmoles/pseuds/duckmoles
Summary: Steve doesn’t know Tony Stark very well. After a battle, it turns out that he knows even less than he thought.A daemon au.





	The Botanic Garden

**Author's Note:**

> For the Tony Stark Bingo square S4: Crossover
> 
> Title from His Dark Materials (ofc)

Steve lounged around the kitchen on the main floor of the tower, cautiously sipping at a cup of coffee and finishing a plate of omelets. The coffee would have no effect on him, but living with half a dozen people who needed caffeine just to survive in the mornings rubbed off. Calisto sat at his feet, head tucked between her paws, tail thumping lazily against the floor.

The elevator doors opened, and Tony Stark stumbled out onto the main floor. His daemon followed him.

Stark headed straight for the coffee pot, pouring himself a mug without even opening his eyes.

“Good morning,” Steve said politely.

He didn’t know Mr. Stark that well, but Steve knew that he was a generous man. Had to be, if he was willing to pay for any and all of the Avengers’ activities as well as allow his bodyguard to work with them.  And Steve trusted Iron Man’s judgement. If he felt that Stark was a good employer, then Steve would put his faith into that.

Stark groaned lowly, gulping down the contents of his mug as if his life depended on it. He cracked open an eye to look at Steve.

“Morning, Rogers,” he said. His daemon wound around his legs, a scraggly black shadow with gleaming amber eyes. She was a black cat, fur smooth and shiny, who, to Steve’s knowledge, didn’t get along with anyone, not even Potts’s little monkey daemon that perpetually perched on her shoulder.  

Calisto lifted her head from her paws to follow Stark’s movements.

Calisto liked Stark, though Steve himself wouldn’t be able to tell you why. Hell, Calisto couldn’t even explain it to him. When he asked, Calisto just shrugged and told him to trust her instincts.  

Steve leaned down slightly to run his fingers through Calisto’s fur as she arched upwards to let him.

Stark set his mug down in the sink after he finished, opened the fridge to grab some leftover pizza, escaped into the elevator. “Pleasure, Rogers,” he said as the metal doors closed behind him and his daemon.

Steve raised his own mug in acknowledgement, though he knew Stark wouldn’t see it. He looked forlornly down at his plate, bare except for a few crumbs. He wondered if he had enough time to make another omelet before he had to go in for a meeting at SHIELD.

Unfortunately, he barely had a few seconds to consider the thought before the Avengers alarm sounded. He glanced at his plate once more before dropping it into the sink.

 

“Central Park, Cap,” he heard as soon as he slipped his helmet over his head. Calisto was already running in the direction of the park, her brand-new Stark Industries armor glinting in the sunlight. Steve followed her, barely looking up as a red and gold streak flew over him, chasing a flying…bat thing. Steve hefted his shield in his arms and prepared for battle.

By the end of the fight, Calisto’s armor was scratched and covered in alien slime. Steve didn’t fare much better, running his hands through his hair to get rid of the rest of the gunk.

The bat creatures were tough creatures that had little self-preservation, slamming themselves into whatever was attacking them at full speed. Steve had dozens of bruises that would fade within the hour covering his body, and they were lucky Calisto wasn’t as injured.

Iron Man landed next to him. “Mr. Stark’s going to go wild when he sees the state the suit is in,” he said, amused.

Steve turned to look at him. Iron Man’s suit, despite what he said, looked as in shape as always, save for the abnormal shine on his torso and arms.

“Seems just fine to me,” Steve said. He nodded to Calisto. “I’ll have to thank him for Calisto’s new armor. Looks just about brand new.”

“It looks fine,” Calisto said, pulling at the latches of the armor until the whole thing fell to pieces around him, “but I’ll have to file an official complaint for it rubbing the wrong way against my fur.”

Steve rolled his eyes. Calisto tended to take things like that too seriously. She was the one that had made him redecorate his new apartment to look less like a military base and more like something approaching homely.

Iron Man was observing their interaction, his faceplate making it impossible for Steve to read his expression, but Steve had the feeling that he was amused.

Iron Man didn’t have a daemon, not one that was visible from outside the armor, at least. The media constantly speculated as to what Iron Man’s daemon was, or if he even had one. Steve didn’t like to listen to gossip, but it was impossible to escape the rumors and questions.

Steve couldn’t imagine Iron Man’s daemon being something small enough to fit in the suit – not an arthropod or miniature mammal, not for Iron Man. And more so, Steve couldn’t imagine that Iron Man was a robot, not even a man. No matter how advanced robots were in the future, none of them could replicate Iron Man’s slick sense of humor or keen eye for battle tactics.

There were other rumors too, but Steve tended not to think about those, because they were, frankly, ridiculous. Iron Man couldn’t not have a daemon, because everyone knew those who had lost their daemon ended up a shell of themselves, barely alive. In the war, Steve had known a few who lost their daemons. One had been transferred into a hospital for shock, but had died a few weeks later, blank and lifeless.

And Iron Man certainly couldn’t be an alien, like Thor, who walked around daemonless and who had taken to carrying around a small parrot as to not terrify the children when they saw him.

The most plausible theory was separation, at least to Steve. Clint’s daemon was separated, as was Carol’s and Natasha’s, and Iron Man’s could be as well.

It wasn’t Steve’s place to speculate, anyway. A person’s daemon was very much their own business.

“Dimensional glitch, apparently,” Iron Man said. “Aliens spilling out from a tiny hole leading to the edge of the galaxy.” At Steve’s look of worry, he added, “Don’t worry, we’re already patching it up.”

“Let’s hope this isn’t the start of something,” Calisto said darkly.

Iron Man spared another glance at Calisto before firing up his boots and speeding off to help with the lift some debris off some trees.

The clean-up took longer than usual with the ooze that stuck everywhere, and when Steve stumbled into the tower, still dressed in the Captain America uniform and holding Calisto’s armor, it was dark and most of the Avengers had already gone to bed. Calisto trailed behind him into the elevator, quiet and sullen.

Steve was barely looking as he fumbled for the elevator buttons, but he was still shocked as the door opened not to his apartment but to Stark’s workshop.

The lights were on and there was the distinct sound of metal hitting metal, as well as music playing over the noise.

Steve was just about to press the button for his floor, this time looking properly, before he heard a loud, “Fuck!” and a crash.

Steve dropped the armor onto the floor of the elevator and rushed in, only to find Stark leaning over the armor, back turned towards Steve and Calisto, arms and legs covered in bruises.

He wasn’t aware of them yet, not over the music and the workshop noise. Steve stepped back until he was half-hidden behind a pillar.

This morning – what was Tony wearing this morning?

It hadn’t been a full suit – couldn’t be – Steve remembered seeing his arms flex as he drank his coffee. Short sleeves, the skin on his arms tanned dark but –

But smooth, and unblemished.

Where did the bruises come from, then?

“I told you to add more shock absorption into the suit,” a high, soft voice said, Steve’s better-than-average hearing barely able to pick up the sound over the rest of the noise.

“Too much bulk, I told you. The nanoarmor hasn’t finished yet,” Tony replied.

Steve shared a look with Calisto. She looked calmer than he felt, ears raised and turned towards Tony and his daemon.

“Valuing style over comfort is what got you into this mess. You’ll have to wear long-sleeves for at least the next week.”

Steve had never heard Tony talking to his daemon before. At times, it was almost like he ignored her entirely.

Steve risked a peek around the pillar to get a good luck at Tony.

Tony  stood in front of the Iron Man armor. The sleeves of his strange black skin-clinging suit were rolled up, now that Steve could see properly, and his hair stuck up straight into the air, as if from static. He ran his hair through his hair, making the whole thing more messy.

And in front of him, perched atop the worktable, was a bird.

The bird was large, almost bigger than the cat that followed Tony’s every footstep, with an almost hunched back and oil-slick feathers that gleamed in the artificial light from the walls.

The bird spread its wings slightly as it – she? – leaned forward, examining the Iron Man suit with a cocked head.

“I thought his daemon was a cat,” Calisto said, disbelieving.

Steve’s eyes darted around the room. And just like he thought, the cat lay curled on a pile of clothing in the corner of the room.

But looking at the way that the bird – a crow of some kind, eyes beady and beak sharp – looked at Tony, in a way the cat never had, Steve knew that Tony’s daemon lay not on the floor, eyes closed and dozing, but instead stood next to him, clawed feet curled around a screwdriver that she handed to Tony.

Tony grabbed the screwdriver and started taking apart the suit where it dented, caving inward in a dangerous manner that would have Steve sending Iron Man back to fix it if he saw it before a battle.

“Soot, we’re scrapping the whole thing,” Tony said.

His daemon – Soot, apparently – made a light cawing noise, almost like laughter. “You’re just mad because Steve didn’t notice today.”

“Don’t call him that,” Tony said. “We’re not even that close. Don’t want to offend his 40s sensibilities.”

Soot flapped suddenly, rising up into the air in a way that seemed impossible for her bulk and landed on a perch opposite the worktable.

Steve stared at the perch. He had been down here a few times before, but he’d never thought much of it. He thought it was for Bruce and his quiet owl daemon, but he now realized it was too large for Casimir.

Calisto pressed against his leg, leaning so far forward Steve was afraid she’d tip over.

Tony rubbed at his head again.

Steve suddenly remembered a moment during the battle, calling a warning out to Iron Man as an alien rammed into the side of his head, sending Iron Man spiraling toward a building.

Iron Man had caught himself before he crashed, but the way he shook his head had Steve worried for the rest of the fight.

Tony sighed and collapsed backwards into a chair. Soot took flight again, landing on his shoulder.

Tony reached up and started petting her feathers, digging in softly with his fingers.

“I wish you could come into battle with me,” he said, so soft Steve barely caught the words.

Soot leaned in closer. She said nothing, but dug her head into the crook of Tony’s neck.

Steve felt like an intruder, a violator of the worst kind.

Calisto nudged at him, then turned and padded back into the elevator.

Steve followed.

**Author's Note:**

> Tony's daemon is a raven in this fic, and her name is Sotiria (though he calls her Soot). He adopted the cat after he found her wandering the streets.  
> Steve's daemon is a wolf named Calisto.  
> Bruce's daemon doesn't show up, but she's an owl named Casimir


End file.
